This invention relates to computer-based systems for assembling, organizing, and distributing information.
Conventionally, as outlined in Luconi, Malone, and Morton, (Fred L. Luconi, Thomas W. Malone, and Michael S. Scott Morton, "Expert Systems and Expert Support Systems: The Next Challenge for Management," in John F. Rockart and Christine V. Bullen, ed., The Rise of Managerial Computing: The Best of the Center for Information Systems Research, Sloan School of Management, MIT (Homewood, Ill.: Dow Jones Irwin, 1986), pp. 365-371), computers are used to solve problems using several different paradigms. In traditional data processing, the input, output, and procedure for generating the output from the input are well-defined and thus suited to conventional programming.
A second paradigm, decision support systems, uses the decision making ability of people to control the problem solving goals of the computer.
A third paradigm of computing, expert systems, is directed to even less structured problems.
The fourth, closely related, paradigm of computing, expert support systems, closely resembles expert systems. They actively process knowledge, draw conclusions, and make recommendations, thereby supporting experts rather than replacing them.
Other problems exist that do not fit into one of the four paradigms. These problems 40, shown in the upper right quarter of FIG. 4, are highly unstructured, complex, and often involve new or rapidly changing products, competitors, markets, technologies, employees, and procedures. Multiple objectives overlap and sometimes conflict, such as the market share of established products, launching next generation products, lowering costs, and profitability.
Software applications are available that permit the creation of novel projections and models, such as spreadsheets which are used to project "what if" financial models. Simulations permit computerized modeling of real phenomena where the computer simulation can be compared to a natural event such as weather (a thunderstorm) or a scientific experiment where the outcome is unknown (DNA splicing). Industrial design illustrates how imagined constructs can be simulated on computers (air flow over a new airplane wing design or the performance of an integrated chip schematic). In many situations, favorable results on the computer result in real-world implementations.
A highly structured example is project management software, which permits a series of tasks to be named in a sequence, resources and personnel allocated to them, and their implementation tracked. One of these systems is the critical path method (CPM), in which a network of activities is created that shows the sequence of operations and the interdependencies of a manufacturing process. A variation of this basic method is PERT (Project Evaluation and Review Technique) which uses multiple estimates to provide a probabilisitic output. These systems are frequently computerized and searched to find the critical item; i.e., the item that is, in effect, the latest, and which determines the final completion date. Project management software establishes a schedule of activities, assigns a time duration estimate to each activity, and establishes baseline dates for the start and completion of each activity.
Computer technologies increasingly permit the nature of work and planning to be originated in mental and abstract concepts. Software to accomplish this includes Computer Aided Design (CAD) which allows new mechanical or electronic conceptions to be constructed on the computer screen. Some CAD software is integrated with manufacturing machinery, indicating the potential for rapidly manufacturing and marketing certain types of computer-expressed ideas. CAD's approach has also been extended into areas like software design, engineering design, and architectural drafting. Imaginative ideas that have been designed on computers have been introduced and developed successfully in a variety of fields.
HyperCard is a new kind of software application that can create information linkages in which individual titles, words, pictures, and parts of pictures are each linked to a related screen of information. Each of these screens must be designed, written, and created; together they form the HyperCard "stack" that can be accessed by an individual application. The HyperCard links are individual "buttons" that are fixed on each screen and each link is individually programmed to call a specific screen in a "stack" of screens. Good examples of flexible software applications are word processing and spreadsheets, which permit users both broad scope and ease of use.
Known software applications to aid learning include on-line help, Expert Systems, Computer Aided Instruction (CAI), and Computer Based Training (CBT).
On-line help is used to teach software applications to computer users when they need guidance. Its rapidly accessed instructions help users read the steps they should take in using the software; by trying the steps they may be able to learn unfamiliar parts of the software quickly.
Expert Systems are used to capture expertise and deliver it via the computer. Expert Systems have succeeded in enabling computers to reason from knowledge within specific domains, and they have been applied to specialized areas like medicine, geology, and financial planning. The power of an Expert System depends on the quality of the decision-making rules used to construct its inferences, and the breadth of its knowledge base. Because the knowledge is stored in active, rule-based form, there is an unfortunate relationship between the quantity of knowledge, the number of rules, and the resulting search time. The greater the scope of an Expert System, the more complicated its programming and the slower the response time.
Computer Aided Instruction (CAI) and Computer Based Training (CBT) are uses of the computer for education and training. Unlike on-line help or Expert Systems, with CAI and CBT one stops work and uses the computer to learn, then returns to work. CAI and CBT are typically separated from an ongoing situation.